Oh the Weather Outside is Frightful...

But inside the music is so delightful. I just finished listening to our podcast recording on the upcoming Lionheart concert and the music clips simply warmed my soul. I could just imagine the Gregorian Chant filling a large cathedral to the point that it rings back into my ears and down to my toes. The sound of this group is simply perfection and I look forward to sitting inside a warm cathedral on a cold evening and enjoying the sounds of a medieval Christmas. To learn more about this incredible group listen to our podcast recording at http://focmkc.podbean.com/. Cynthia Siebert will share interesting details regarding the origins or Gregorian Chant and medieval music. Be sure to join us for a unique Christmas tradition inside one of the city’s most beautiful cathedrals. Happy Tydings!

Yet Another Connection

It’s like when you buy a new car and you say to someone “I never saw a car like mine before I got this one. Now I see them all the time.” It’s all about awareness. I have become more aware of my love of music since I have started at The Friends.

I am proud to say I know a lot about music. Not as much about classical music but in general a lot about music. However my passion for classical music has skyrocketed since starting my work with The Friends, and I find my awareness of how much classical music means to me increasing as well.

For example, working here has awakened me with renewed interest to my love of Gregorian chant. This discovery has probably led to the annoyance of my fellow staffers as I blast Requiem masses and other chant works while I work. This renewed interest has continued expanding and also led me to rediscover my love of Beethoven.

Ole’ Ludwig and I go way back to when I first started to really get into music. In an earlier blog entry I had mentioned my first CD purchase to be that of Beethoven Sonatas played by Friend’s favorite Dubravka Tomisc, but recently I was connected yet again to this great master while at the same time being connected to someone very special.

I was visiting my aunt recently and was telling her about my new work at The Friends. She has always been a close relative engaged in my life and what I do. As I was telling her about my new work she mentioned that her late husband loved classical music and she had found some CDs of his that she wanted to share with me.

My late uncle was a really great person. Unfortunately, he passed away much too soon from ALS before he and I got to really know each other. I was in 4th grade and remember his great energy but we didn’t get to share a lot. As I looked through the CDs with my aunt that day I found something that gave me great joy to find.

When I was younger, after discovering Beethoven through Dubravka Tomsic I remember buying as many Beethoven CDs as my paper route would allow. One of those was his 6th Symphony by Academy of Saint Martin’s in the Fields. I played that CD out listening to the masterful composition so much that I had the tune memorized. My love of the Beethoven symphonies has never wavered and continues today.

As I looked through the CDs with my aunt I found one that I had to take. Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 “Sinfonia Pastorale” by the Academy of Ancient Music. The Friends will present them this season and it was such a neat connection to know that my uncle was a big fan of their work and he has several of their recordings. That connection means a lot to me because yet again the power of music has been confirmed within me and I continue to realize how important my work at The Friends is. That concert this year is sure to be even more special to me as I get to work on presenting them to Kansas City.

My memories of my uncle will be at that concert and though we may not have had the chance to share much while he was alive we will be sharing the power of music that night.

'Just War' According to Dialogos

The staged musical production of ‘Judith’ by Katarina Livljanić and members of the ensemble Dialogos tells the biblical tale of the beautiful enchantress, Judith, who seduces and then beheads the Assyrian general Holofernes to liberate the Hebrews. The score also includes a medieval 5-string fiddle, a lirica (Croatian traditional stringed instrument, tuned in ‘archaic’ manner), and archaic flutes. The beauty and Croatian authenticity of Livljanić’s voice, the narrative and discursive power of the instrumental parts, the elegance of the staging and lighting, and the poetics of the carefully devised, historically informed Glagolitic text (and translation that is sympathetic to the needs of the audience, as opposed to Livljanić’s fellow scholars)—all of these combine to achieve a compelling artistic result, just as with ‘Vision of Tondal’ and other of Dialogos’s productions.

Character development in Livljanić’s version of ‘Judith’ is fuller than in the simplified accounts of the story that are familiar to us, and far more complex than in the synoptic artworks through which most of us are acquainted with it ... Klimt and Caravaggio and Reubens and so many others.

Holofernes, the general of the Babylonian King Nebuchadrezzar, whose decapitation by Judith is referenced in the Old Testament. Holofernes, the powerful general of King Nebuchadnezzar’s army. A number of provinces of the Second Jewish Commonwealth had withheld their assistance from Nebuchadnezzar and his government—had declined to join the coalition of the willing. So now comes Holofernes, the guy Nebuchadnezzar dispatches to give them an offer they couldn’t refuse.

The historical general did lay siege to Bethulia. The city was on the verge of surrendering but was saved by Judith, a beautiful Hebrew widow who preyed upon Holofernes’s huge vanity, deceived him, drank him under the table, sliced off his head in bed. Judith, she who then returned to Bethulia displaying the severed head, after which the Hebrews went on to beat Nebuchadnezzar’s now-generalless army. Morals: Be careful who you drink with, and be sure to drink responsibly. (more)

History and Heritage

The Folly Theater is such a charming, wonderful place. It was built in the first part of the last century and in those early decades hosted the best entertainers and shows on the circuit. Later it saw some really raunchy X-rated days in the middle of the century when classy places had left that part of downtown, and the pictures of it then look like it was really sad for what people had let it become. When people in the 60s or 70s wanted to put it out of its misery, I’m so glad somebody had the chuzpah to put down their foot and say, “No, I won’t let you destroy this place of history and quality!” I’m glad that at some point people of culture came to their senses and realized that destroying the old to bring in the new wasn’t all of the equasion for a healthy society. That we stand on the shoulders of the ones before us. That newness is shallow and incomplete without the the foundation of the old. That you can’t develop a better future without knowing and understanding the past.

Jordi Savall’s concert on the music of Don Quixote last weekend was breathtaking! I love that there are scholar-musicians in our time that have the knowledge, interest, and skill to reconstruct the music, instruments, and techniques of their ancestors, bringing back to life (as closely as one can without recordings of the actual music) the experience of musicians and listeners from centuries ago. Last Friday we heard Renaissance Spanish music played by period instruments and interspersed with narrative from the 17th century text of the novel by Cervantes. This was a “bringing back to life” moment of people long-dead, but whose culture and society lives on in the people who played for us.

Next week we’ll experience Croatian musicians presenting the music and scholarship of their ancestors in medieval Croatian music and texts. In February, the spell-binding storytelling of the Old English text, Beowulf, will come to Kansas City. And although this all comes to us through the centuries from lands afar and people very long since dead, those heritages of culture and the sense of who those people were directly affect the mixing pot that is our country today and the direct connectedness that is our world today.

Canon in D in Everything

As a college student, usually if the topic of classical music is brought up, it’s to remark on how boring it is, or how they use it to fall asleep. But people don’t realize how much influence and what part classical music plays in their lives. One of the best videos that I’ve seen on youtube has been the Pachelbel Rant. A comedian finds that Pachelbel’s canon in D is in much of mainstream music today. It’s amazing to see people so turned off by classical music turn to these different forms of music which have the same melodies and chords as classical music. In harder rock music, such as metal, it is very prominent; and is also prominent in punk music, to many people’s surprise.

Another place that people often discount classical music is in movies. Try to imagine watching any movie today without a soundtrack. People notice when there’s no soundtrack to a movie. Something is distinctly missing. I really noticed this when watching the movie, “No Country for Old Men.” The movie had barely any score, and feeling it conveyed was very pronounced. The entire time, something was missing, and it was unsettling. A score can also be one of the strongest things in a movie. There are always certain melodies from movies that instantly will remind you of them. A few of my favorites are Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Amèlie, and Lord of the Rings. It’s funny when you think about these things, you start to give more appreciation to classical music, and all that it’s brought.

Connecting to the Past

I recently had an interesting connection in my career. As I look back on what got me to the place I am now, it took me a while to discover what it was that I wanted to do with my career. I took a rather unconventional journey to get the point where I am now in that my degree is in theater and not marketing. Also, I am often labeled as the “creative one” in my family because I'm the only one that has a job in marketing and the only one that has done work in the performing arts. However, I recently had an interesting discovery about someone very special to me. A few years ago, my grandmother Marguerite entered the phase of her life in which she needed to live in a nursing home. When this transition occurred my aunt, who manages her day-to-day affairs, gave me a couple of very special gifts that helped me feel a deeper connection to my grandmother.
The first of these was a literary magazine in which my grandmother was published in 1935. I found this very inspiring because I enjoy creative writing myself and I too was published for the first time some 60 years later than my Grandmother in 1995.
Secondly, I received two of my grandmother's college yearbooks. She had attended St. Mary's College in Leavenworth, Kansas and graduated with a degree in mathematics in 1933. As I look through the yearbooks I discovered many ways in which my grandmother and I are similar. One is that she, in addition to mathematics, excelled in literature--something I've always prided myself on. I also discovered that she had a love of the arts and of language and was a member of the drama club. She had also played golf which is something I pretend to play as well. Upon further inspection I discovered that my grandmother had been the illustrator for her yearbook. There wedged inside of one of the yearbooks was a proof that she had made. (A “proof” is a document that when received back from the printing company requires your signature to ensure its accuracy.) It was very interesting to see that the proofing process hadn't changed much in the 70+ years since the yearbook was published.
As I continue to expand my knowledge base of chamber music and grow more with our organization, something I have enjoyed is connecting to the past through the art of music. In this instance not only was I able to connect to the past but I was also able to discover a possible source of my talents. I look forward to carrying out the legacy of not only great composers but also that of my grandmother.

My Granmother at St. Mary's College in 1930

Spanish From Spain

I am sitting here at my desk listening to the Don Quixote CD by Jordi Savall to get my ears ready for the concert this Friday. This music awakens a deep part of my soul that only comes alive when I hear the unique sounds of castanets, clapping and stomping combined with classical guitar (or this case the viola da gamba.) It is the unmistakable sound of Spain. I know this sound well as I spent nearly a year in Spain studying while in college. I spent my year learning the culture by taking flamenco lessons, learning to play the castanets myself, listening to classical guitar, studying their accents and simply taking in the beautiful Moorish culture of Southern Spain.

The narration on the CD is in Spanish and my heart leapt when I heard the distinctive Spanish accent that can only be heard in Spain. There are of course many varieties of this accent as you travel from region to region. The clearest version is spoken in Madrid, the capital of Spain. The easiest way to know if you are hearing Spanish from Spain or some other country are in the “S’s.” Spain Spanish uses a “Th” sound rather than using a crisp “S” sound when using “S’s”. For example, “Gracias” in Spain would sound something more like “Grathias” and “Barcelona” now sounds like “Barthelona.” In Andalucia, the Southern region where I studied, you would also hear the “S” left off the end of words all together. So now “Gracias” becomes “Grathia” and “Vamos” becomes “Vamoh” with an emphasis on the “H” at the end.

I couldn’t tell you exactly where this unique accent originates. My guess would be that it has something to do with the strong Catalonian influence in the region. Catalonia is still an autonomous community within Spain and people in that area still speak this medieval language called Catalan. Regardless of its origin, the Spanish in Spain is unique and unmistakable. The narration that you will hear at our Don Quixote concert on Friday night is in English so you will not need to worry about paddling your way through the difficult Spanish accent but I guarantee the music will awaken your inner flamenco dancer and send you dreaming about your next vacation to Spain. Do not miss this concert on Friday, it is going to be a highlight of our season!